Unlikeable Female Characters: Flawed Female Characters and the Power They Hold

by Anna Bogutskaya

It has always been quietly fascinating to me that while the big bad husbands (who were liars, cheaters, drug dealers, or straight-up murderers) became beloved pop culture icons and Funko Pop figurines,1 their wives, girlfriends, or partners were judged and smirked at. Was it because the evilness of the male antiheroes was too abstract, too big and dramatic to be seen as real? Or maybe it was because we wanted them to be bad, because being bad meant they were interesting and watchable? And yet, the reaction to their female counterparts seemed to defy this logic. If they stepped out of line, they were lambasted by audiences for allowing, accepting, or indulging the bad behavior of their partners. Why was it so much easier to hate the more quotidian immorality of the antiheroines? While audiences hope that the male antihero might eventually improve, their female counterpart is irredeemable. As these totem shows have continued to expand their reach beyond their original runs, especially once they arrived on popular streaming services, these characters have also been revisited and reappraised as richly flawed antiheroines, trapped in some ways, complicit in others.